The Past on the Page: Bringing History to Life
Spring 2007 – X32.9008
“The past is another country,” the novelist L.P. Hartley wrote, “they do things differently there.” Writers delving into history must behave like travelers exploring an exotic lost world, trying to understand a landscape that is sometimes very familiar but at other times utterly bizarre. Learn how to bring the past to life in a way that is fresh, vivid, and relevant to modern concerns in genres including creative nonfiction, fiction, travel narratives, and personal essays. Even the most personal of memoirists find that history is not only fascinating for itself; it casts a piercing light on our own lives.